Another Lure Of Outsourcing: Job Expertise
Naveed Sherwani, a former executive at Intel Corp., literally wrote the book on designing one popular variety of computer chip. He is equally expert in the technical talents available in his native India. That's why he has set up a chip-design center there for his Silicon Valley start-up, Open-Silicon Inc.
"We didn't go to India just to reduce cost, but to increase our reliability and predictability," Mr. Sherwani says.
Decisions like Mr. Sherwani's are another wrinkle in the relentless globalization of high technology. While companies often outsource jobs for lower wages, many are also going to China, India and other emerging economies for brain power and product ideas. The trend raises the specter of stiffening global competition involving innovation as well as cost.
The shift is particularly striking for the chip industry. It began moving labor-intensive assembly operations to Southeast Asia nearly 40 years ago. But American chip companies kept their control of many industry segments by designing key products at home.
Now, many of these companies are nurturing a growing pool of designers in Asia and Eastern Europe. Locally owned chip-design companies are also springing up, particularly in China.
Moving chip design abroad may not threaten the U.S. semiconductor industry, many industry executives say. Most chips developed in those regions have been relatively simple, nothing on the order of Intel's flagship Pentium line. Moreover, Mr. Sherwani and some other executives believe the spread of chip-design activity abroad is helping boost sales at U.S. technology companies by addressing talent shortages that slow the delivery of new products.
"New engineering resources allow their world-wide business to grow, which helps them hire more people in the U.S. than they would otherwise," argues Walden Rhines, chief executive officer of Mentor Graphics Corp., Wilsonville, Ore., which sells software used to design chips.
But the rising number of engineers emerging from universities in Asia and Eastern Europe, and their increasing sophistication, points to the possibility that tech companies in the U.S. and other established economies could eventually lose their dominance in chip innovation.
"The attitude here is that they aren't real engineers, they aren't that good," says T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, a San Jose, Calif., chip company that has a 165-employee chip-design center in the Indian high-tech center of Bangalore. "Nobody should rely on that."
The trend is still in its early stages. ISuppli Corp., an El Segundo, Calif., market-research firm, estimates that about 7,000 people design chips in China, compared with 40,000 to 50,000 in the U.S. Only 3,000 to 5,000 are designing chips in India, the firm says, compared with estimates that more than 660,000 people there work in computer programming and technology services.
But the growth is accelerating. Mr. Rhines says Mentor's sales of chip-design software in China have tripled in two years, with India and Eastern Europe growing just a bit slower than that.
One reason is a big shift in chip consumption. Companies in Taiwan and China design and build a huge share of the circuit boards and computers that eat up chips. By 2003, chip sales to companies in North and South America had sunk to 19% of global consumption, down from 32% in 1998, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. Countries in Asia rose to 37% of chip consumption from 21% over the period.
Companies that design chips frequently need close collaboration with customers, particularly those in large markets with specialized needs. China has further fueled that trend by setting unique standards for chip-based products, such as wireless communications on laptop computers.
To boost their foreign presence and get closer to customers abroad, U.S. chip companies such as LSI Logic Corp. have purchased semiconductor companies in China and India. And locally based chip companies in developing nations are building businesses around their knowledge of regional requirements. ISuppli for the first time last year added 17 Chinese chip companies to its database.
Talent is the other driver. Cypress first set up its Bangalore operation to avoid losing one Indian engineer, who wanted to return home after working for the company in Mississippi. Other chip makers have opened similar design operations in far-flung places to retain or attract prized designers.
Intel, which has operations in Beijing and Shanghai, has particularly aggressive plans for Bangalore. About 900 chip designers work there for the company.The No. 1 chip maker plans to expand its technical staff there to 2,000 by 2006, at a time its U.S. staff isn't likely to grow much. Though engineers in Bangalore start at around one-third of Intel's usual salaries, an Intel spokesman says its strategy is not to have them do existing work for less money. Rather, the new design teams in India help create new products.
"This is not India vs. the U.S. -- this is India plus the U.S.," says Ketan Sampat, president of Intel's Indian subsidiary. He says designers in Bangalore are doing "some of the most complex work there is on the planet."
Open-Silicon, which has raised $19.5 million in venture capital, limits its business to relatively simple custom chips. It has landed nine design jobs, all from North American companies.
Dale Ford, an analyst at iSuppli, says other kinds of relatively simple design jobs could be transferred to lower-cost locations abroad. Mr. Sherwani and other executives argue that U.S. chip companies should continue to lead the market, as long as other U.S. companies keep designing advanced gadgets that need sophisticated chips.
"Innovation will continue to thrive here and be funded here," said Ronnie Vasishta, LSI Logic's vice president for technology marketing.
外包的新诱惑：人才
英特尔公司(Intel Corp.)前管理人士纳维德?舍尔瓦尼(Naveed Sherwani)写了一本关于如何设计一款受欢迎电脑晶片的书，而他对他的老家－－印度的科技人才状况也同样十分精通，这就是舍尔瓦尼为什么在印度为矽谷的初创企业Open-Silicon Inc.设立一家晶片设计中心的原因。
舍尔瓦尼说，"我们在印度设立研究中心不是为了削减成本，而是为了增加业务的可靠性和可预见性。"
类似于舍尔瓦尼这样的决定是高科技全球化浪潮中掀起的又一个波浪。通常美国公司外包主要是为了节约工资成本，但是也有许多公司将工作职位转移到中国、印度和其他新兴经济体是看中当地员工的才能和产品设计理念。这种新趋势不禁让人担忧全球竞争可能进一步加剧，因为竞争与革新和成本息息相关。 这种转变在晶片行业中尤其明显。大约40年前，晶片行业开始将劳动密集型的组装业务转移到东南亚。但是美国晶片公司依然在美国进行关键产品的设计，保持对晶片行业多个领域的控制权。
现在，许多公司在亚洲和东欧培养越来越多当地的设计人员。当地的晶片设计公司也如雨后春笋般涌现，尤其是中国。
许多业内管理人士称，将晶片设计业务转移到海外也许不会威胁美国的半导体产业。因为这些地区开发的大多数晶片相对简单，与英特尔的旗舰产品Pentium不是同一级别。
此外，舍尔瓦尼和其他一些管理人士相信，海外的晶片设计工作帮助促进了美国科技公司的销售，因为困扰新产品交付的人才短缺问题得到了解决。
Mentor Graphics Corp.的首席执行长瓦尔登?莱因斯(Walden Rhines)说，"新的工程资源使得美国科技公司的业务得以增长，从而帮助这些公司在美国雇佣更多员工。"Mentor Graphics是一家出售晶片设计软件的公司。
但随著亚洲和东欧大学的工程师数量大幅增加并且掌握越来越复杂的技能，美国以及其他发达国家的科技公司可能最终将失去对晶片革新的主导权。 晶片公司Cypress Semiconductor的首席执行长T?J?罗德格斯(T.J. Rodgers)说，"这边的心态是他们不是真正的工程师，他们没有那么优秀。美国公司不应该依赖他们。"这家公司在印度班加罗尔的高科技中心有一个拥有165名员工的晶片设计中心。
新趋势只是刚刚显露出苗头。市场研究公司ISuppli Corp.估计，大约有7,000人在中国从事晶片设计工作，在美国这一数字在40,000至50,000之间。该公司称，印度只有3,000-5,000人从事晶片设计工作，而从事电脑编程和技术服务的人数高达660,000多人。
但增速在加快。莱因斯称，Mentor的晶片设计软件在中国的销售额过去两年增至最初的三倍，印度和东欧的速度仅仅较此略低。 这一巨变的一个原因是晶片消费的增长。台湾和中国公司设计并制造了大量的线路板和电脑，此类产品消耗大量晶片。据半导体产业协会(Semiconductor Industry Association)估计，截至2003年，北美和南美洲晶片消费占全球消费比例从1998年的32%降至19%。亚洲国家的消费比例从21%升至37%。
晶片设计公司需要与消费者通力合作，特别是在那些有著特定晶片需求的大型市场当中。中国对新趋势推波助澜：中国与晶片有关的产品设立了自己的标准，比如笔记本电脑的无线通讯技术。
为提高外国市场占有率并更接近海外消费者，LSI Logic Corp.等美国晶片公司购买了中国和印度的许多半导体公司。此外，发展中国家当地的晶片公司正根据当地的技术要求发展壮大业务。ISuppli去年首次将17家中国公司加入其数据库当中。
人才是另外一个驱动因素。Cypress在班加罗尔开展业务的目的为了留住一名印度工程师，因为这位原在Cypress密西西比公司工作的印度工程师打算回国。其他晶片制造商也在千里之外设立了类似的设计公司，以保留或吸引有才能的设计师。
在中国北京和上海设有公司的英特尔在班加罗尔有一个野心勃勃的计划。英特尔目前在班加罗尔有900名晶片设计人员。该全球头号晶片巨头计划到2006年将技术人员数量扩充至2,000人，而其美国员工数量则不可能增长太多。尽管班加罗尔的工程师的起薪是英特尔普通薪资的大约三分之一，但英特尔发言人称，公司策略不是付较低的薪水让印度工程师做现有的工作，而是让印度的新设计队伍帮助创造新的产品。
英特尔印度子公司总裁科坦?萨姆帕特(Ketan Sampat)说，"印度与美国不是竞争关系，而是补充关系。"他说，班加罗尔的设计人员从事著"这个星球上最复杂工作的一部分。"
Open-Silicon获得了1,950万美元的风险投资，其业务仅限于相对简单的定制晶片。目前该公司已经签了9个设计合同，这些合同全部都来自北美公司。
iSuppli的分析师戴勒?福特(Dale Ford)说，其他类型的相对简单的设计工作可能会被转移到低成本的海外。舍尔瓦尼和其他高层人士辩称，美国晶片公司应该会继续主导市场，但前提是其他美国公司继续设计出需要尖端晶片的高级科技产品。
LSI Logic负责科技营销的副总裁荣尼?瓦思舍塔(Ronnie Vasishta)说，"科技革新在美国将继续保持旺盛生命力并且获得资金支持。"
